The public frequently hears that the native peculiar Forces are at a “world level”. At the same time, they are 1 of the fewer elements of the current country, which has a very good reputation among a vast part of society. Unlike the services, “specialists” were not active in current political disputes (uff... and this better not change!).
However, the respect that individuals have earned should not obscure the discussion on how to improve their abilities. Meanwhile, 2 completely other opinions prevail in the operators' environment. The first is that problems should not be discussed.
It is dictated by the belief that "outsiders" will not realize the essence of peculiar troops. Thus, discussion on shortcomings can only lead to a distortion of public assurance in individuals. According to the second view, problems should be identified so that they can be corrected.
We are besides closer to the second of these perspectives, as it is the only way to last in the "world's top". A good diagnosis is the first step towards expanding the possible of individuals, improving their hardware capabilities and raising awareness of their correct use. And it may besides be possible to avoid any unpleasant “surprising”...
Problem Masking
Keeping public opinion in the belief that between Polish and American “specialists” there is no difference, sleeps alert and promotes laziness... If we recognise for all time that we are like “specials from the USA”, this will consequence in covering the most severe problems that our soldiers face.
The awareness of the increase in these processes is present in the heads of an expanding number of operators. In private conversations 1 can even hear that "Poland is not America and Grom is not Delta". It is very important, however, to realize the essence of this comparison correctly.
It is about problems in the field of strategy and organisational solutions in which the peculiar Forces operate. In turn, the training of individual soldiers (shooting and tactics) and his motivation are found in Polish formations on a akin level, as in their counterparts from the USA.
At individual level, our operators are indeed a global “top”. The origin of this is, among others, reforms that have been successfully implemented in peculiar Forces over a twelve years, the American “know-how”, as well as the hard work of soldiers. Thanks to this, specified formations as Grom, JWK, or Formozo became a real elite of the Polish army.
This was subsequently confirmed by their effectiveness in combat and professionalism, which the Poles showed during the early phases of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, a place at the top is not given erstwhile and for all. Therefore, we cannot let years of cognition and experience in the peculiar Forces area to undergo slow erosion.
So let us focus on considering what we are "not commuted" and what we inactive gotta work on. Improving these problems would besides enable our operators to further make and likely increase their level of service satisfaction.
Differences between Polish and American peculiar units
We have identified 4 key aspects in which we believe we can see a contrast between Polish and American peculiar units:
- Matching the tasks of individual units to the needs of the state.
- The ‘System’, i.e. support, logistics and equipment, which let peculiar formations to actually carry out their tasks.
- Suboptimal usage of the capabilities of peculiar units by the state, which means that they presently have small combat experience.
- Institutional memory and planning skills.
In today's part of the text we will discuss the first of these points, and in the second we will deal with the 3 others. We will besides propose changes.
Matching tasks of peculiar units to the needs of the State
If you follow the past of the American peculiar Forces, you will most likely conclude that these units were created in consequence to circumstantial threats. Their way of working is besides subject to constant evolution. The celebrated ‘Delta’ (1st SFOD-D/Task Force Green) is, for example, an entity whose tasks focus primarily on combating terrorism and taking hostages.
These functions consequence from the fact that the US has been operating worldwide for years to combat terrorist organisations. An example of this is the actions aimed at the muslim State (PI) which were carried out in Syria by "Delcers". In particular, they active the abolition of elder members of the organization.
Less often, targets were captured, as planning specified an operation is much more hard and more risky for operators. Therefore, attempts to halt terrorists are only made if there are circumstantial grounds for this (e.g. the request for intelligence available to the target).
During the fight against PI, Delta soldiers stayed in Syria for a long time, performing usually 2 to 5 operations a week. Not all of them, however, active storming, as it was besides essential to carry out exploratory actions and those aimed at targeting targets.
However, direct counter-terrorism operations resembling the events described in Syria are not always possible. Operational priorities, deficiency of strength and resources, or the political situation may prevent active action at any time. So in specified situations, 1st SFOD-D soldiers can become quasi-graduates.
Acting as advisers to the Department of Defence, For example, ‘delcers’ can be included in the staff of the American embassy in a given country. Their task is to keep relations with local authorities, services and troops. This enables them to get intelligence and prepare the ground for future kinetic activities.
The request to have the ability to recover kidnapped citizens
The natural consequence of a global counter-terrorism policy and extended US interests is the anticipation of kidnapping 1 of the citizens of that country. Moreover, unlike most Western nations, the Americans have indeed pursued a policy of refusing to negociate with terrorist groups. And that's not just what they say.
Consequently, the U.S. has a real request to keep the unit, which will be able to immediately undertake a hard operation to release the hostage. This was the case, among others, in the case of the kidnapping of Kayla Mueller. Delta was at that time practically on a permanent "standby", carrying out preparatory activities and at least respective times attempting to release an American woman.
It is very crucial that the United States has the essential financial, diplomatic, military and intelligence resources to conduct a policy to combat terrorism, covering the full world.
This besides enables peculiar forces to take fast action in distant parts of the globe and provides a real alternate to negotiating with hijackers.
Beginnings of Polish peculiar Units
The formation of the native peculiar units in their current form has enabled political circumstances, conducive to the transfer of "know-how" in this area. They know shared with Poland, especially the USA. But she had a price. The exchange of experience was initiated in the 1990s, during the implementation of the Bridge operation.
This mission was to shield the transport of Jews from the USSR to Israel. This has become possible thanks to our country's support. These actions were indeed a reflection of the interests of Israel and the USA, not Poland. However, the cooperation was besides beneficial for Poland, as it contributed to expanding its credibility during a hard period of systemic changes.
This interplay of favorable circumstances was utilized by S. Petelicki. The concept of creating JW Grom, which he then introduced, enabled the very desirable institutionalization of cognition obtained by Poles from Americans. Since then, our country has had the power to defend institutions and citizens abroad.
Heritage of American instructors
However, the threat of terrorist attacks against citizens and facilities of the Republic of Poland abroad was gradually reduced after the completion of Operation Bridge. At the same time, it is not a secret that the United States has helped to make the JWG, as they wanted this unit to be able to support their interests, including providing assistance to US citizens in the region.
In addition, the assistance of the operators of "Delty" in creating the Thunderstorm, and cooperation with American units profoundly rooted in Polish peculiar forces the focus on combating terrorism, hostage-reflection operations and the general modeling of Americans. In this field, however, “robots” for Poles was for a cure.
This situation was attempted, among others, as an apparent justification for attempts to weaken JWG's position or even effort to resolve this formation. This would, of course, be harmful and endanger to lose the "know-how" developed by Poland so far in the area of peculiar forces.
Gradually, however, a paradox began to increase – the threat of terrorism in Poland was decreasing, and individuals who wanted to specialize in its fight grew. This led, for example, to an unhealthy rivalry of "boys from Mars" with the Police for the designation of formation, which would be intended for counter-terrorism activities in Poland.
Despite this, in Poland there has never been a real analysis of the needs of the state in the area of peculiar actions, and then the actual imposition of the most desirable specializations on individuals.
The consequence is, among another things, that all formations are prepared to execute tasks related to the release of hostages, which are practically absent. Moreover, this disrupts the training process. For example, during control in the unit, which is intended to support peculiar actions, operators' skills in the field of "hostage rescue" are checked.
Iraq, Afghanistan and the ‘Tier-1’ units
That is why the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan carried out jointly with the US have breathed into the Polish peculiar forces of a fresh spirit. The reality of those wars created the anticipation of "hunting" terrorists or utilizing akin partisan tactics. The memories of those operations, and the aspirations of modeling on Americans, are inactive alive in the individual formations.
It's hard to blame operators for their ambition to be the best. However, if they are not decently channelled through organization conditions, this can lead to systemic pushes and distortions.
And yes, if you talk to JWG soldiers, there's a good chance that you'll hear from them that this formation should act as akin to the Tier-1 units in the US (i.e. Delta and Seal squad Six, intended to fight terrorism). For understandable reasons JWK operators do not want to feel "worsier" than colleagues from Warsaw.
They so claim that they can besides do "dajekts" and take hostages. Following this lead, the attribution to Lublinc of the specificity associated with green tactics is, according to some, a false assumption. Fortunately, Formoza seems to have given up the conflict for the name “Polish Delta”, satisfying the function of “Polish SEALs”
In the end, all Polish peculiar units surpass in solutions in the field of black tactics, neglecting by this another areas. The war in Ukraine shows, on the another hand, that this is simply a incorrect direction.
Is the Polish policy aimed at combating terrorism?
In addition, there are respective “small” problems involving the targeting of Polish peculiar units to counter-terrorism and hostage-taking operations:
- Poland does not wage a global war on terrorism.
- Foreign activity of the Polish Republic is much more limited in comparison to US activities, so the number of kidnappings of Poles abroad is negligible.
- In addition, our country does not have a systematic policy on kidnappings of Polish citizens abroad and conducting/not conducting any negotiations with terrorists. Although any politicians would like to imitate the U.S. intuitively in this regard.
- Not all kidnappings are besides terrorist. 1 might even be tempted to say that they belong to a number comparative to the full number of kidnappings in the world.
- Even if Poland wanted, like the Americans, to conduct a policy not to negociate with terrorists, there are considerable doubts about the anticipation of realising it.
- The practice besides shows that it is debateable whether our political class has the courage to take work for deciding to carry out a very risky operation, which is to effort to take the hostage back.
We are so dealing with a fundamental deviation of state policy with tasks and specificity of peculiar units. This can besides be felt, among another things, during exercises organized by DKWS, erstwhile peculiar Forces soldiers hear about the tasks that the staff have foreseen for them: “What? What are we expected to do here?”
It's not who's better, it's who can do what mission
Someone might ask at this point, but what is it? After all, our “specialists” have been active in the “Military Assistance (MA)” missions for years, that is, training the army of another countries. So let them practice taking hostages, and if they request to do something else, they'll do it anyway. For they are “the best” and so “the easier” things should be “the better”
Yeah, but... no. You know, the tank can besides be an armored transporter, but is it an optimal use? Not exactly. That's why erstwhile you had to kill Osama bin Laden, Americans sent Delta or Seal squad Six. And erstwhile the mission was to usage Afghan militants to fight the Taliban, they utilized US Army peculiar Forces.
Ship business operations in the US are usually the domain of the "Seals". Rangers are utilized to support combat and landing operations. Of course, under conditions of war and tremendous operating pace (e.g. at the summit of operations in Afghanistan), each of these units will be able to implement a "dirkt" or peculiar recognition.
Nevertheless, individual formations have a unique nature of tasks in which they feel best. The abovementioned ‘MA’ operations require, for example, advanced interpersonal communication and language skills. And these elements are much more reflected in the Green Beret training process than in the improvement of Delta operators.
So what should I do?
In the area of peculiar forces, Poland is in a comfortable situation. We have created solid foundations for the construction of each of the already existing formations. Now they just request to be decently integrated into the safety system. It can be done in 3-5 years. How? Invoking a peculiar task force.
Its function would be to analyse current threats to the safety of the Polish Republic, as well as the long-term interests of the state. On this basis, individual tasks would then be ordered. erstwhile we have this developed, the squad members should start working on the level of DKWS and individual units.
This would aim to adapt the structure, training and recruitment to individual formations for their operations. It is crucial that members of the task force come from erstwhile peculiar Forces soldiers and intelligence officers. And we don't say that due to the fact that we want to catch a ‘stage’ – there are many another people
The implementation of specified measures simply requires that those active be able to break distant from the logic of the "my unit is the best" style, and that they can look at the full system. There is nothing unusual about it – organisations have been employing external consultants for years to make strategical changes.
You may besides wonder why we proposed that the intelligence officers besides be part of a task force? peculiar units must cooperate with peculiar services for the effective performance of their tasks. So it is crucial to find in advance where the competences of any and where the others lie.
Moreover, this interview is much more competent than “specialists” in assessing external threats. We hope you can see that the trial proposed by us is nothing special. It is not essential to make changes to the safety sector. All you gotta do is want
In a fewer days, the second part of the text. It will address the issue of supporting peculiar activities, logistics and equipment. We will besides consider the impact on individual individuals of the long-term deficiency of combat action and the institutionalised form of constant adaptation of individual formations to current challenges.
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